China's Brainwashed Youth
The protests against Japan didn't get us our islands back, but they made one thing clear: The people are puppets of the Chinese Communist Party.
BY QI GE | SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

SHANGHAI â€” Ever since the 1970s, I have known that the Chinese people are the freest and most democratic people in the world. Each year at my elementary school in Shanghai, the teachers mentioned this fact repeatedly in ethics and politics classes. Our textbooks, feigning innocence, asked us if freedom and democracy in capitalist countries could really be what they proclaimed it to be. Then there would be all kinds of strange logic and unsourced examples, but because I always counted silently to myself in those classes instead of paying attention, the government's project was basically wasted on me. By secondary school and college, my mind was unusually hard to brainwash.

Even so, during my college years, I still hated Japan. I felt that the Japanese had killed so many of my countrymen, the vast majority of them civilians, that it wasn't enough that they had eventually surrendered. It was only after studying Japanese and reading additional historical materials that I gradually understood the true face of history: When the Japanese army invaded China in 1931, Mao Zedong, in those days still a guerrilla fighter, turned and ran. Chiang Kai-shek, China's nominal president at the time, stayed behind to fight the Japanese in his wartime capital of Chongqing, but Mao's Communist Party fled to the north to establish a base of anti-Japanese resistance in the provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu, and Ningxia, where there was no Japanese army at all.

Today's youth are repeating the same growth experience I had, but unlike my generation, whose hatred of Japan remained at the verbal level, they have taken the streets to demonstrate.

Even though China's constitution permits demonstrations, the government prohibits them except in special circumstances. Anyone familiar with Chinese history knows that when Chinese law says one thing, it might mean the opposite. For example, Chinese law says that everyone is equal before the law, but in fact Hu Jintao and his colleagues are more equal than everyone else.

So, Chinese young people today ought to thank the Japanese government, for if it hadn't purchased the Diaoyu Islands, the Chinese government wouldn't have opened the net a little, allowing them to take to the streets last week. The demonstrators chanted monotonous and boring slogans, like telling the Japanese to get the hell out of the Diaoyu Islands; plainclothes cops intermingled with the marchers, keeping in nervous contact through their earpieces. Protesters even carried images of Mao, who died in 1976, though I wish he had died much earlier.

Many of the young marchers were terribly excited. For decades, TV shows about the Anti-Japanese War of 1931-1945 had distorted historical facts and turned the Japanese into a stupid, aggressive, cruel race of cockroaches that needed to be exterminated. Amusingly, the Chinese actors portraying those Japanese devils only spoke Chinese, bowing and scraping shamelessly, their every move no different from those of corrupt officials throughout China today.

Now, the Chinese government feels that it's not enough to smear the enemy through television alone, and the time has come to allow young people to demonstrate, a chance young people welcome because through their patriotic actions they can prove their worth in this world. Many of them are ordinarily very humble, drawing a low salary and struggling in expensive cities. They can't afford to buy homes, have a family, raise children, or take care of their parents, and no one pays any attention to them. But now, these trampled marionettes have finally made the leap to the center of the political stage, so they willingly allow their strings to be pulled.

But the Chinese government's brainwashing education is more sophisticated than this. For a red regime to stand so long, to match Western countries in capitalistic indulgence, it needs to surpass the crude Soviet model. And sure enough, after the smashing and burning, the propaganda machine flung out the slogan "rational patriotism": It's the same old follow-the-party's-instructions, but it's a different era and the party must be hidden, which means that it must emphasize the fashionable word "rational." The Communist Party and its Propaganda Ministry have always kept pace with the times.

In this delicately authoritarian society, "rational patriotism" means respecting the rules set up by the totalitarians. This sort of rationality, and this sort of patriotism, would be familiar to Joseph Goebbels. Yet the brainwashed patriotic youth of the mainland don't understand this. The Hong Kongers who protested the "patriotic education" imposed by the mainland government really know how to protest -- unlike on the mainland, their demonstrations were truly spontaneous and did not have government support. No wonder domestic news outlets did not report on them.

Strangely, on the microblogs, a surprising number of well-known intellectuals strongly supported the rational patriotism slogan. I found this baffling at first, but then it hit me: When they sat in ethics class in primary school, they must not have had my fondness for counting to really high numbers.

If we follow the authors logic, then the remaining chinese who didnt took to the street, surely were not affected by the "brainwashing" then.

AFAIK the author is talking about his days in the 70s. I am not aware of China teach politics in the elementry school today. Ethics is a part of cultur. I will assume you learn about ethics well before you enter the elementry school......

China's Brainwashed Youth
The protests against Japan didn't get us our islands back, but they made one thing clear: The people are puppets of the Chinese Communist Party.
BY QI GE | SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

SHANGHAI â€” Ever since the 1970s, I have known that the Chinese people are the freest and most democratic people in the world. Each year at my elementary school in Shanghai, the teachers mentioned this fact repeatedly in ethics and politics classes. Our textbooks, feigning innocence, asked us if freedom and democracy in capitalist countries could really be what they proclaimed it to be. Then there would be all kinds of strange logic and unsourced examples, but because I always counted silently to myself in those classes instead of paying attention, the government's project was basically wasted on me. By secondary school and college, my mind was unusually hard to brainwash.

Even so, during my college years, I still hated Japan. I felt that the Japanese had killed so many of my countrymen, the vast majority of them civilians, that it wasn't enough that they had eventually surrendered. It was only after studying Japanese and reading additional historical materials that I gradually understood the true face of history: When the Japanese army invaded China in 1931, Mao Zedong, in those days still a guerrilla fighter, turned and ran. Chiang Kai-shek, China's nominal president at the time, stayed behind to fight the Japanese in his wartime capital of Chongqing, but Mao's Communist Party fled to the north to establish a base of anti-Japanese resistance in the provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu, and Ningxia, where there was no Japanese army at all.

Today's youth are repeating the same growth experience I had, but unlike my generation, whose hatred of Japan remained at the verbal level, they have taken the streets to demonstrate.

Even though China's constitution permits demonstrations, the government prohibits them except in special circumstances. Anyone familiar with Chinese history knows that when Chinese law says one thing, it might mean the opposite. For example, Chinese law says that everyone is equal before the law, but in fact Hu Jintao and his colleagues are more equal than everyone else.

So, Chinese young people today ought to thank the Japanese government, for if it hadn't purchased the Diaoyu Islands, the Chinese government wouldn't have opened the net a little, allowing them to take to the streets last week. The demonstrators chanted monotonous and boring slogans, like telling the Japanese to get the hell out of the Diaoyu Islands; plainclothes cops intermingled with the marchers, keeping in nervous contact through their earpieces. Protesters even carried images of Mao, who died in 1976, though I wish he had died much earlier.

Many of the young marchers were terribly excited. For decades, TV shows about the Anti-Japanese War of 1931-1945 had distorted historical facts and turned the Japanese into a stupid, aggressive, cruel race of cockroaches that needed to be exterminated. Amusingly, the Chinese actors portraying those Japanese devils only spoke Chinese, bowing and scraping shamelessly, their every move no different from those of corrupt officials throughout China today.

Now, the Chinese government feels that it's not enough to smear the enemy through television alone, and the time has come to allow young people to demonstrate, a chance young people welcome because through their patriotic actions they can prove their worth in this world. Many of them are ordinarily very humble, drawing a low salary and struggling in expensive cities. They can't afford to buy homes, have a family, raise children, or take care of their parents, and no one pays any attention to them. But now, these trampled marionettes have finally made the leap to the center of the political stage, so they willingly allow their strings to be pulled.

But the Chinese government's brainwashing education is more sophisticated than this. For a red regime to stand so long, to match Western countries in capitalistic indulgence, it needs to surpass the crude Soviet model. And sure enough, after the smashing and burning, the propaganda machine flung out the slogan "rational patriotism": It's the same old follow-the-party's-instructions, but it's a different era and the party must be hidden, which means that it must emphasize the fashionable word "rational." The Communist Party and its Propaganda Ministry have always kept pace with the times.

In this delicately authoritarian society, "rational patriotism" means respecting the rules set up by the totalitarians. This sort of rationality, and this sort of patriotism, would be familiar to Joseph Goebbels. Yet the brainwashed patriotic youth of the mainland don't understand this. The Hong Kongers who protested the "patriotic education" imposed by the mainland government really know how to protest -- unlike on the mainland, their demonstrations were truly spontaneous and did not have government support. No wonder domestic news outlets did not report on them.

Strangely, on the microblogs, a surprising number of well-known intellectuals strongly supported the rational patriotism slogan. I found this baffling at first, but then it hit me: When they sat in ethics class in primary school, they must not have had my fondness for counting to really high numbers.

It is fact that Japan slaughtered millions of Han during WWII. That is certainly something to hold a grudge over and CCP is allowing that hatred to stir up again. I just hope they don't let it get out of control or ties with one of its most important trading partners and investors could be ruined.

Hans, Manchus, Mongols, Huis( Chinese Muslim Ethnics),Zhuangs, even Miaos, in a time of war, all ethnic groups in China were under attack.
Hatred was planted in the heart of the mass people by the cruel war crimes committed by imperialism invaders but not by education.

We Chinese build our new country by revolution and by war. we did not sit there and begged for independence. Maybe it will not be comprehended by your non-violent non cooperation mentality, you are not the one to blame.

However, since you are in France, learn something about Jean D'arc or Bastille. Hehe

It is fact that Japan slaughtered millions of Han during WWII. That is certainly something to hold a grudge over and CCP is allowing that hatred to stir up again. I just hope they don't let it get out of control or ties with one of its most important trading partners and investors could be ruined.

If we follow the authors logic, then the remaining chinese who didnt took to the street, surely were not affected by the "brainwashing" then.

AFAIK the author is talking about his days in the 70s. I am not aware of China teach politics in the elementry school today. Ethics is a part of cultur. I will assume you learn about ethics well before you enter the elementry school......

Share everything.
Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK

There's not much 'politics and ethics' in Chinese kintergartens. Children run and scream, and by the way learn a bit maths with an abacus and drawing (graffiti).

The really cruel thing is that Chinese kids have to start competing for better grades / scores even since elementary school. Many attend extracurricular classes on weekends, such as English, playing piano, karate. The priority is given to get admitted to better schools for advanced education. Chinese children or youth get 'brainwashed? Frankly, on the countrary there's too little "ethics" (or manners IMO) nowadays being taught. Are those "basic" things mentioned by Mr Ewald ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN being covered? Maybe.

And back to 'brainwasing' people of my age may have got more of that. When I was a pupil we were washed a lot. The songs we learned are like "Our motherland is a garden, 56 ethnic groups are 56 flowers", and "Devote myself to serving the people like Uncle Leifeng (a role model)".

Hatred was planted in the heart of the mass people by the cruel war crimes committed by imperialism invaders but not by education.

Click to expand...

The CCP shows atrocities of WWII in graphic detail, plays the worst Kuomintang propaganda films and portrays the Japanese as barbaric savage people. There is little attempt to distinguish those soldiers committing war crimes to the people today.

We Chinese build our new country by revolution and by war. we did not sit there and begged for independence. Maybe it will not be comprehended by your non-violent non cooperation mentality, you are not the one to blame.

Click to expand...

CCP built your new country by human suffering, suppression of freedom and raping of the environment. Yes, I do not understand that.

However, since you are in France, learn something about Jean D'arc or Bastille. Hehe

it is funny that the west and its stooges who have the most powerful propaganda machineï¼ˆref the ubiquitous CNNã€BBC etcï¼‰ï¼Œare accusing others of brainwashingã€‚
ï¼Œ
if Chinese youth were brainwashedï¼Œthey are being brainwashed by western media and western governments propaganda apparatusesã€‚

it is ironic that those who are subject to the influence of the western version of the story and take western reports for granted never thought that they might be the worst vistims of brainwashingã€‚

it is all a game of the mindã€‚

smart people see what you doï¼Œnot what you sayã€‚

only fools thought they knew the truth as told by the western propaganda machineã€‚

Ha! That's just hypocritical... Why can the Mainlanders be branded "brainwashed" yet HongKongers and Taiwanese who demonstrate just as vigorously against the Japanese moves regarding the Diayou's aren't labelled as such as well? Since the islanders aren't influenced at all by the CCP are they marionettes as well for landing on the Diayou's and protesting? Are the Japanese protesters "brainwashed" by their government for protesting?

It's sad how people here can be as nationalistic as they want yet it's somehow illegal for Chinese citizens to be nationalistic as well. Realize that right now, almost all Chinese feel those islands are ours as much as the Japanese feel they are theirs. Its all pure nationalism. Accusing one side of being puppets and deeming the other as exercising their free will, when both are being unreasonably nationalistic over a few rocks in the Pacific is the height of hypocrisy.

The CCP shows atrocities of WWII in graphic detail, plays the worst Kuomintang propaganda films and portrays the Japanese as barbaric savage people. There is little attempt to distinguish those soldiers committing war crimes to the people today.

Click to expand...

Japanese soldiers comitted crimes in ww2 who said japenses people barbaric??

i only know some EU countries began to beg prc to put their spaceman onboard our manned spaceship...........u cant even put a man in your own spaceship.....can u be more laughable???indeed 500 behind u........

actually....i m not saying cpc hasnt been doing some brainwashed things but that doesnt mean people can be easily brainwashed......and as a matter of fact brainwash things largely were done before 1980 in CR era.....

what is real brainwash??if u ask an indian he will tell you indin got some victory in Nathu La and Chola and Sumdorong Chu....and then he will also tell u nehru giftted the UNSC seat to china..........i think those r real brainwashed.....

Ha! That's just hypocritical... Why can the Mainlanders be branded "brainwashed" yet HongKongers and Taiwanese who demonstrate just as vigorously against the Japanese moves regarding the Diayou's aren't labelled as such as well? Since the islanders aren't influenced at all by the CCP are they marionettes as well for landing on the Diayou's and protesting? Are the Japanese protesters "brainwashed" by their government for protesting?

It's sad how people here can be as nationalistic as they want yet it's somehow illegal for Chinese citizens to be nationalistic as well. Realize that right now, almost all Chinese feel those islands are ours as much as the Japanese feel they are theirs. Its all pure nationalism. Accusing one side of being puppets and deeming the other as exercising their free will, when both are being unreasonably nationalistic over a few rocks in the Pacific is the height of hypocrisy.

Click to expand...

Couldn't they be mainland Chinese since there are lot of people from China in HK, isn't it?